My First Tour Down Under
IT was with a bit of hesitation that I had prepared myself for a trip to Bonn, Germany, some time ago. "It is a sleepy little town", or "You'll have problems with language", or even "Germans are very cold", were some of the ominous comments that I heard from friends and relatives. On the contrary, my half a year's stay in Bonn proved all these initial feelings wrong.
It was soon after the erstwhile capital of Germany got stripped of its diplomatic glamour, that we planned to stay in Bonn for a few months. It was my first journey abroad, but my initial feelings of awe evaporated the minute we boarded the train to Bonn at the Frankfurt airport. I did not have enough time to digest the combination of a train station and an airport in a single building, as the train soon started following the banks of Rhine, and skirting the hills. I found myself almost running between the windows to savour the scenery around me, luckily the train was empty and no one around to mind my hopping like a child. Small villages by the Rhine, dotted with shiny slate-roofed houses and occasional churches with tall spires looked right out of a picture postcard. The vineyards on the slope of the hills looked like scratch marks for some cosmic design. I later learnt that the train journey along the Rhine on this track was one of the most scenic in the whole of Europe.
The railway station in Bonn was small and rather gloomy. At last we had reached our destination. We were to be put up in an apartment at the other end of the city, in a suburb called Bad Godesberg. On our way from the station, I saw small houses on both sides of the neat and clean road. It was amazing that almost every house had a small garden with seasonal blooming flowers. Those who could not afford one decked their balconies with flowers. Bad Godesberg was full of embassies and residences of their offices. Most of them were in the process of shifting to Berlin which had become the new capital.
Our house was very close to the Israeli embassy, which looked like a fortress with its security gadgets on its walls and gates. There were always armed guards standing on the footpath and I heard that they usually interrogated suspicious looking passers-by. I tried to avoid going too close to it, but once when I was struggling with a rather large amount of grocery, one of the men came forward to help me out.
The most beautiful part of where we stayed was undoubtedly the Rhine. It was within a few hundred metres of our apartment and we often took walks along the banks of Rhine in the evening. There sailed barrages and ships on its waters from many neighbouring countries. The Rhine still remains a major way to transport goods in this part of Europe. But apart from its utility, it was simply a lovely river. Once we were invited to a short cruise on the Rhine by the Humboldt Foundation of which my husband was a fellow. It begs words to describe the elegance with which the river snaked between the hills, often guarded by castles on either side. There is a cliff not far from Bonn which is associated with the myth of Lorelei, the maid whose songs apparently made sailors crazy and caused accidents.
If there is a local hero in Bonn, it is the famous composer Beethoven, who was born here. In fact they often call Bonn the "Beethoven City". ("Beethovenstadt"). There is a lifesize statue of the composer in the centre of the city, just opposite the main postoffice. Apparently Queen Victoria herself was invited to the unveiling ceremony of the statue.
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in a small, two-storeyed house in the central part of the city, which has now become a museum. One cannot make out that the house is a few hundred years old, as it has been maintained very well (unlike the birthplaces of famous figures in our country). The room in which he was born is empty except for a bust. It is a small room on the second floor, with tiny windows. The museum has a number of things used by Beethoven, like his shaving kit and his spectacles, as well as the horns he used to put on his ears to try to listen. There is a big piano with all its legs cut off. When he was on the verge of total deafness, Beethoven cut its legs off out of frustration, so that he could kneel down to put his ears on the floor to try to hear a bit of sound. It remains a mystery to me how an aurally challenged person could conjure up the compositions that have enthralled people for centuries.
Bonn hosts an annual festival celebrating the music of Beethoven, where performers and orchestras from all over the world come to play his music. The main auditorium in the city, aptly called "Beethovenhalle", is a lovely piece of architecture, with a large bust in the lawns in front of it.
The market
Going around the residential suburbs of Bonn, I found an odd similarity with India. We are used to seeing small temples in many corners of the street in our country. Here, in this very Catholic part of south-west Germany, one not only finds small churches all over the place, but also small figurines of Virgin Mary with candles on many street corners and junctions. Another odd similarity was the open air markets in the weekends, where farmers from nearby villages and towns brought their produce to sell. I enjoyed shopping for grocery there as everything was fresh compared to the supermarkets. But there was something that was not quite like home. The market ended at a fixed time and the whole place was then cleaned meticulously with German discipline.
Once a month there was a large fleamarket on the banks of the Rhine, where people from all walks of life could display and sell used things. Many simply came for a picnic or even to sunbathe. This became a favourite haunt for me, looking for antique decorative pieces, while munching on Deutsche snacks like Reibekuche (fried potato) with apple sauce.
Bonn still carried the scent of its past diplomatic flavour. The old offices of the Chancellor, and the old parliament building gave it a forlorn look. I had the privilege of sitting and dining in the old parliament, courtesy the Humboldt Foundation. Interestingly, the old Indian embassy was very close to these prominent buildings. I was told that India was one of the first countries to have granted recognition when "West Germany" was created and it was given the honour of having its embassy on this prominent street.
Apart from the Europeans, I also had the chance of getting to know a number of Bangladeshi immigrants. I took part in some of their cultural activities like teaching Tagore's songs to their children which was a rewarding experience. It was heartwarming to find people trying to keep in touch with their own culture in a foreign land.
There were many foreign scholars in our apartment, and we, the spouses, often had get-togethers. German friends and colleagues also joined from time to time. We did not have any common language, as most of us did not know German well and others were not comfortable with English.
At the end I was lucky that Bonn was a small town and not a touristy megapolis, otherwise I would never have learnt this beautiful aspect of life.
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